28 October 2009 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

Yahoo! to introduce social search competitor

Yahoo! is introducing its own social search function through a partnership with real-time search engine OneRiot.

The search engine field has evolved in the past week, with Microsoft signing deals with Twitter and Facebook and Google unveiling Social Search to provide personalised search results from a user's social circle.

With the face of online search changing, it is clear that Yahoo! felt pressure to provide its own answer, or risk being left behind in the new social search wave. By teaming up with OneRiot, Revolution Magazine reports that the search engine will provide users with access to relevant news, videos and blogs from social networking sites.

A Yahoo! spokesperson told TechCrunch: "We can't comment on rumor or speculation.

"Real-time search is important and we're currently conducting several tests designed to discover if showing such content is useful to people using Yahoo! Search.

"Yahoo! is focused on creating the most innovative, easy-to-use and valuable search experience for people, and after these tests we will carefully evaluate whether we should integrate such results for everyone using Yahoo! Search."

Yahoo! is still the second most popular search engine after Google, achieving a 10.66 per cent share of the US search engine market in the first half of October 2009 compared to Bing's 7.21 per cent share and 4.36 per cent for less well-known search engines. However, Google remains the untouchable market leader, boasting a 77.78 per cent share. It remains to be seen how the balance of power will be affected by the social search revolution.

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